The present invention relates to an oil containing an effective absorption lowering amount of a modified starch and a method of preparing fried foods with a reduced fat content.
Fried foods, such as french fries and chicken nuggets, are commonplace in the diet. However, due to health and dietary concerns, many people have reduced or even eliminated fried foods from their diet.
Reduced oil fried food compositions are known in the market. However, many of these suffer in taste, texture and/or appearance. Reduced oil products are often produced by baking, instead of frying, or frying for a more limited amount of time. Reduced oil products may also be produced by coating the product, for example with hydrocolloids, to prevent oil absorption. Despite the advances in this field, there remains a need for fried food products, which have a reduced oil content, yet remain organoleptically similar to fried foods which do not have a reduced oil content.
Surprisingly, it has now been discovered that reduced oil fried foods with acceptable taste, texture and appearance may be achieved by frying in oil containing an effective absorption lowering amount of a modified starch.